Lesson 10: Time§
Tense is optional. Say when it happens the first time, and after that stop marking it: afe, to nawi pasu. "Yesterday, I ate food." The future works the same way: wuma, to obu. "Tomorrow, I'll come." The basic time words are eda now, mefa today, wuma tomorrow and afe yesterday.
Three small words show where an action stands. sin means done: to sin nawi "I've eaten". le means in progress, and also "still": to le nawi "I'm eating". buntu means about to: to buntu kusa "I'm about to leave".
mu sin is "not yet": to mu sin nawi. "I haven't eaten yet." sin and le don't combine, so "I was eating" is a past time word plus le: afe, to le nawi.
For habits, put manni before the verb. On its own it means "usually", as in to manni isi "I usually go", and with a past time word it means "used to". For intent, gan momu is "on purpose" and mu gan momu "by accident".
Before the verb, things go in this order: small operator words, then manni, then sin, le or buntu, then the verb. For example, to fe manni le doku "I'm also usually working".
To count from now, use wo and ya. wo nelon fi "after one week" is next week, and ya dunan fi "before one month" is a month ago. Any time can be the starting point: wuma wo dili fi "the day after tomorrow".
The units of time are dili day, nelon week, dunan month (also "moon") and fawu year. Hours, minutes and seconds are borrowed: awuwa, minitu, sekandu.
A length of time is a count: awuwa ka "three hours". nin with a length means "for": nin dili oma "for seven days". gimu is an occasion: gimu sa "twice".
Clock time works the way your culture does, and both styles are always understood. On a 12-hour clock, say the hour, then the minutes as two digits, then the part of the day if it's needed: mon mape ka po pi yami "at 9:30 at night", mon yawu po sa "at 10:02". On the hour, say just the hour: mon yawu sa "at 12". Midnight is yawu sa pi yami. The parts of the day are leso morning, minfi noon, duwun afternoon, kegin evening and yami night.
On a 24-hour clock, read the four digits one at a time: mon sa fi ka po "at 21:30". For "around" a time, put fu before it: mon fu minfi "around noon". In writing, give the time the way your culture writes it.
In a date the bigger unit comes first, with a comma between: the month by number, then the day. So dunan pi yawu, dili pi mape "October 9". A year is read digit by digit: fawu pi sa po sa ufo "2026". On its own, dili pi with a number from 1 to 7 is a weekday, counting Monday as 1: dili pi ka "Wednesday". For a date without its month, add what it's the day of: dili pi ka pi dunan "the 3rd of the month".
Age is time lived. to nume fawu ka yawu "I have lived 30 years" is how you say you're 30.